Dark Duck Y2: An Ace in Wonderland
by VAPX007
Summary: Game for anything but another dull and boringly Normal weekend, J Gander Hooter accepts an invitation to a dinner-party at the Mallard's place thinking to help Drake out with a problem case he's having. But who else does Drake invite over as well? More children, of course. With an accidental sprinkle of fairy dust the resident family's imaginations take a very realistic turn.
1. The Riverbank

___Disclaimer: Nope, Darkwing Duck ain't mine._

_A/n: Okay, so __while true and apparent that OC children overrun my future DD world, it is also a fact that Drake loves kids and I hold him partially responsible. And since Hooter knows that children overrun Drake's home life, he's got third party responsibility as well for accepting the invitation to the dinner party._

_A/n: Oh, yes, and a few notes on Ace for clarity's sake. She's that conflicted person I got when I crossed Launchpad with Doctor Sara Bellum from S.H.U.S.H. but with one step sideways: "Aunty Sara" and "My mum's a coroner."_

_Launchpad currently runs a small courier company called Ace Air Dynamics out of the hanger he owns outside of town when he's not helping out DW. (That's the hanger where he met Darkwing Duck in the very first episode. I claim this hanger in the name of Launchpad McQuack.) So apart from the points I've just listed above, Ace is otherwise __Normal__, and boy is __Normal__ hard to write._

* * *

**_(Takes place several months after the events of Left Wing)_**

* * *

**On the Riverbank**

* * *

Every so often Launchpad McQuack would glance away from the busy road over to the passenger seat where his four year old daughter sat. Instead of the usual bubbly conversationalist Ace normally was, she was sitting there quietly staring out the window with her hands in her lap.

"Heyah, kiddo?" Launchpad asked as he pulled up behind a line of cars at the last set of lights out of town, "anything you want to let your dad in on? A problem shared is a problem halved. You know you can always talk to me."

Ace turned her head to him. She looked so precious with her short blonde hair tucked under her pilot cap and her brown Junior Woodchucks sweater on. "I want to stay home with you, daddy."

"Ah." Launchpad grimaced as the cars in front started moving again. The grey minivan began moving through, the green Dogcatsu went after and he followed them on through the intersection. "It hasn't been much fun at home lately," he began his unhappy explanation, "I thought it might be a good idea to give you a break. I reckon this sleepover will do you good."

"Why can't you come too, daddy?" Ace pleaded, "It'd be good for you too."

"Aw ..." Launchpad gushed, feeling a warm glow from his daughter's caring affection, "sorry, kiddo, I really can't stay this time." Dropping down to first gear again, Launchpad swung around the last corner into Avian Way. He took a breath, summoning his courage over the job of returning to the hospital. "There's too much on at the moment."

"You don't have to go back if you don't want to." Ace stated, having sussed out his mood on the subject, "we could both sleepover together and then it'll be fun for the both of us."  
"No, I've got to get back." Launchpad stated firmly. "A McQuack's gotta do what a McQuack's gotta do."  
A sad little sigh came from his daughter in the passenger seat. "Okay, daddy."

* * *

"Well, here we are." After pulling to the curb alongside the white picket fence Launchpad had a proper look at the Mallard's house. The walls were still a clean white, the roof was still a grey shingle and the weathervane ward looked just as unassuming as the last time he'd seen it. It'd been a while but things didn't seem to have changed too much. "It's time to bail out, Ace."

Launchpad helped Ace out of the passenger seat and fetched her overnight gear from the boot of their dinged up brown Meercati and turned to face the fence. If they didn't approach the Mallard family's house just right, he knew, Morgana Mallard's wards could make it a rather unpleasant visit.

"What do the signs say, daddy?" Ace pointed the signs on the fence out to Launchpad.

"Hey; I don't remember them being here before." He remarked and pointed. "This one says 'Beware the Gnomes'," He read aloud to her, then pointed to the other one, "Warning: Unfriendly Fairies Out in Force." Launchpad approached the gate. "Guard Gate on Duty," he advised, reading the little sign on the gate.

"I don't think they like people, daddy." Ace decided.

"Of course they do, kiddo!" Launchpad chuckled, "these are all just here to keep the place safe for you kids." He levered the Guard Gate open and heard a crack of thunder ring out from the weather warning vane overhead. The dutiful gate vibrated with its own force, as though deciding whether this was the grip of someone friendly or not. Out of the corner of Launchpad's eye there was a glimmer of a fairy. There were sounds of rustling all along the short trim fence line hedges as the only evidence that gnomes were watching them. There was another glimmer from out of the corner of Launchpad's eye. The wards certainly were out in force. "Really safe." He added.

"Come on, Ace." He looked down to her and held his hand out for hers, bringing her protectively to his side. Together they headed up the path and onto the porch. Once again while he wasn't looking the broom in the corner twitched and he noted more fairy glimmers darting at the corners of his eyes.

"Hey, Ace." He said in a friendly tone, "Wanna do the knocking?" Launchpad offered.  
"Yes, please!"  
He lifted his little girl up, aiming his daughter at the doorknocker.

Ace raised the knocker and swung it back at the door plate. When the door started to open she hid her face in his scarf.

Launchpad hugged her back, looking as DW appeared in the doorway. "Heyah, DW." Launchpad felt torn between his daughter who clearly didn't want to leave his arms and the unfortunate atmosphere he didn't want her to have to deal with.

"Hey, Launchpad. Hi, Ace." Drake tried being jovial.  
"Your front garden's gotten quite busy. It's not even dark yet."  
"Yeah," Drake glanced around, "the fairies and gnomes have their strategy all worked out."

Launchpad roused his daughter hiding in his arms, "Come on, Ace, time to be brave." He said determinedly. "Say hello to Mr. Mallard."

Ace peeked out of the scarf at Drake and timidly waved at him.

Drake ventured a smile at Ace. "You know, Ace, I remember you being a lot smaller the last time I saw you."  
"Yeah," Launchpad felt his own bravery faltering, "it's been a good few months. Things have been getting away from us a bit lately." He put Ace back onto the porch and handed Drake her bag.

Launchpad knelt down. "Ace, I promise you, once things get sorted I'll come back and pick you up."  
"Even in the middle of the night, daddy?" Ace pleaded, "as soon as you can? Oh, please, daddy, please!"  
Launchpad smiled bravely at Ace. It was something that would keep his little girl going. "Sure, kiddo, I promise: as soon as I can." He hugged her back. "Now, why don't you go find Justin? You like playing with him." Launchpad stood up and watched his daughter slip past DW in through the doorway.

"Hey, Ace." Launchpad called back for her, undoing his scarf from his neck and wrapping it around her shoulders. "Remember your dad loves you."  
She looked back at him with a sad face. "I love you too, daddy."

A moment later Drake spurred Ace on. "You should try Justin in his room, Ace." Drake advised and Ace acknowledged his words by heading to the staircase.

* * *

Drake turned back to Launchpad with sympathy, "if only I could help you out, LP."

"Hey, DW," Launchpad felt comfort from his friend's words, "this is a big help. It saves Ace a bit of heartache and it gives us grown ups a chance to pull ourselves back together."  
Drake frowned, "someone will have to explain about her grandfather to her, though. Would you like me to handle it?"

"Ah, no," Launchpad chuckled with his nerves, "it, uh, better be me, DW. Ace isn't like your kids, she's, well," Launchpad struggled to grab that right word, "with Ace it's never so much as what you say but how you say it. No, I'll figure out the best way and let her know when I get back."

"Okay, Launchpad." Drake hefted Ace's bag onto his shoulder, "well, if she's anything like her dad this place will prove a hefty distraction."

"Thanks." Launchpad scratched his head. "Uh, what exactly do you mean by that, DW?"  
"LP," Drake smiled sadly at him, "you better get going; Amelia's going to be missing you."

* * *

It was Friday afternoon and Hooter was still trying to finish up with Grizlykoff so he could be off for the weekend.

"Sir," Grizlykoff looked again through his notes, "I also believe second year cadets would be more suitable for Quiverwing's training program than first years."  
Hooter looked longingly over at his overcoat hanging on the coat stand behind the door, "For what reason?" He looked back to Grizlykoff.  
"They have already had S.H.U.S.H. standard procedure training."

Hooter blinked. "Is that your only argument for this point on your list?"  
"Sir, procedures are vital for maintaining correct S.H.U.S.H. function into future."  
"Yes, Assistant Director." Hooter agreed firmly, "and Quiverwing has structured her curriculum with dutiful attention to this." He tsked, "Really, Grizlykoff, I think you're suffering a touch of nerves. Go home. Reread her proposal and I will see you again on Monday morning." Hooter stood up and headed for his jacket. "As for me I have a dinner party to get to and I do not want to be late." He looked over as Grizlykoff organised himself ready to leave.

"This Drake Mallard, I have not heard much talk of him." Grizlykoff stated.

"Oh?" Hooter blinked back at Grizlykoff. Sometimes his assistant's memory hit these unfortunate blank patches. "He's a fairly quiet sort of person." Hooter briefly said in non-explanation. "Have a good weekend, agent. Get some rest."

"You also, sir."

Hooter smiled back, "No, actually, I'm looking forward to some fun for a change."


	2. Chase the Rabbit Part 1

**Chasing the Rabbit Part 1**

* * *

**A Place ****for Ace**

* * *

Ace climbed up the stairs and peered through the crack of the first door. This was Gosalyn's room with the big school desk and the poster of the soccer player. Justin wouldn't be in Gosalyn's room so Ace moved on.

The next door along was open all the way. Ace took a step inside. This was Raya's room. Raya's room wasn't like Ace's; the bed frame and stuff was white like hers but the pink frills and white lace was something Ace's mum thought was silly. Raya had plain grey tinged walls and Ace's mum and dad thought that was too bland and depressing. Ace's bedroom walls back home were all a friendly sky blue with white fluffy clouds and a huge rainbow splashed across the wall over her bed. Instead of the planes and rocket ships that Ace had on her doona covers and curtains, Raya had an army of bears sitting on top of her bed and her curtains were boring. There were more bears on Raya's white desk sitting beside the lamp keeping it company. There were some big bears on her toy chest too.

Ace came in another step. Poking out behind Raya's bed, she saw the end of a spare bed in front of the toy chest. It was low and looked like it could hide under Raya's bed. Ace guessed this was her sleepover bed all set up for her and she came around Raya's bed to have a good look. There were dinosaurs on her doona cover and a yellow plush aeroplane on her pillow.

"Hello!" Delighted, Ace picked up the fluffy stuffed toy and turned it around to see it properly. It had a smiling yellow face with large white window eyes. Its yellow wings and oversized grey propeller blades were all squishy just like the rest of it. She'd never seen any toy like it. "You're funny looking." She declared, "But I love you anyway." She hugged it.

After a moment, Ace remembered that she was looking for Justin and she still hadn't found him yet. With the aeroplane in her arms, she left Raya's room and saw the door across the corridor.

Ace went to the closed door across the way from Raya's room, raised her hand and twisted the handle to open it a little. She peeked in. There was a big bed in the middle of the room, a tall bending mirror and no toys at all. 'This must be the parents' room.' Ace didn't understand why parents always had such boring rooms.

* * *

She turned from the opened room and went to the last bedroom door on the right.

"Hello, Justin." Ace called through the half-closed door and opened it all the way up.  
"Hi, Ace."

Justin's room had changed very little since Ace remembered it last year. It was still coloured purple with all the posters on the walls. But instead of cars and action figures Justin was sitting on the racing car floor rug with paper all around him. He had a yellow shirt on.

Ace sat down on the other side of the paper. "What are you doing, Justin?"  
"I'm reading." He answered. "I want to try to help my daddy with his work."  
Ace petted the cream scarf around her neck, "he's already got my daddy helping him." She tried to get Justin's attention away from the paper. "Can we play Darkwing Duck with your toys?"  
"I'm sorry, Ace; but I need to help my daddy." Justin sighed, rummaging around through the papers.

Ace frowned. Justin's daddy sure liked taking everyone's time away from her.

"I can't just play Darkwing Duck; I need to 'be' Darkwing Duck." Justin tried to explain to her.  
Ace scratched her head. "So you can help your daddy?"  
"Exactly!" Justin finally looked up at her. "I know what I'm doing is a bit complicated so you can't really join in, but I've got plenty of nice books on my table that I'm sure you'd like to read. I've got -."

"I-don't-feel-like-doing-hard-stuff!" Ace stopped him. "Reading is hard work. I want to do something easy."  
Justin shrugged, "well, Catlyn likes playing cars and stuff. You could ask her to play."  
"Okay." Ace decided this was a good idea, "where's Catlyn?"  
"She's playing in Gosalyn's room."

"She's very quiet; I mustn't have looked hard enough." Ace rationalised and stood up, "Good luck with being Darkwing Duck, Justin." She paused, looking up at the poster on Justin's wall of Darkwing Duck standing in front of his motorcycle and turned back to him. "But paper doesn't make an action hero. Action makes an action hero or else he's just a comic book."

Justin started looking excitedly through his papers again. "Action. Action ... hero."

Ace shook her head since Justin didn't seem to understand what she was saying and quietly left with her chunky yellow aeroplane in her arms.

* * *

**Outward Bored**

* * *

Behind the wheel of his car, J Gander Hooter was in the thick of the Friday afternoon outbound traffic and he was having an incredibly dull time in the parking lot of Audubon Bay Bridge. He realised, given the length of the queues behind each set of lights, that if he'd spent another ten minutes back with Grizlykoff that he'd probably get to Avian Way with barely a two minute difference.

It would have made less difference if he'd stayed with Grizlykoff however. Currently, Hooter's assistant had himself locked up in tight mental circles over the idea of letting go of his cadet trainer position just as much as the stretch of cars had Hooter trapped on the bridge right now. Whatever reasons Grizlykoff came up with, Hooter sat there thinking, it was clear that Grizlykoff's sense of control was the true casualty behind the matter of putting The Quiverwing Quack in charge of training first year cadets. The best cure Hooter could think of was time. Grizlykoff had the rest of this year to get used to the idea and make some actual rational suggestions to improve Quiverwing's proposed curriculum.

To date, Hooter felt that the most interesting comment Grizlykoff had made was of how hard Quiverwing had made her course. Hooter thought it was to be expected; she was young with high aspirations of training a new generation of superheroes. While Grizlykoff thought they needed a backup plan for all the cadets she was bound to cut, Hooter believed Quiverwing would care enough about her ex-cadets to invent one of her own.

As the traffic banked along the bridge crawled forward another few metres Hooter gazed uninterestedly at the back of the snack food truck in front of him. His thoughts turned to the matter that brought him here. Darkwing Duck had only fleetingly described the case he was on.

'In a word the case is about "Mobsters".'

Darkwing had then gone on to talk about Doctor Sara Bellum's father, Cerville Bellum, and his deteriorating health over the past couple of years. At the time it seemed to Hooter a rather disjointed topic, but then Darkwing's mind often made these sorts of abstract connections to get to his ultimately practical conclusions. Although Hooter had known that Sara had been growing more unpredictable of late, Cerville's daughter preferred to focus on her work rather than on talking about her personal life. Then Darkwing went so far as to tell Hooter that Cerville Bellum was going in to the operating theatre on Friday, which was now today.

Darkwing had fallen silent on that statement and it'd taken a moment for Hooter to catch up. The career problem-solver was ready to collapse under the weight of the situation. His insight couldn't affect the outcome and he couldn't crack the case he was on either. Realising how much help Darkwing needed, Hooter had accepted his invitation to dinner at his private residence.

It hadn't been until after Hooter had hung up the video phone from Darkwing that he realised why Cerville Bellum's condition and fate played such a large role in Darkwing's mind and why he affected Darkwing's ability to handle the mobster case. Cerville Bellum was not just Sara's father but also her sister's; Amelia-Sue McQuack nee Bellum. Sara frequently blessed her sister for marrying such a caring and capable person. With Cerville's deteriorating health, Launchpad McQuack had taken charge and become his chief carer, much to the two sisters' relief.

There was another side to this matter, however, that Hooter had so far overlooked. While Launchpad McQuack was at Cerville Bellum's side, Darkwing Duck was working solo.

About halfway down the Audubon Bay Bridge, the impatient driver of a chunky Metro Golden Bird car in the next lane started honking at the moderate silver Dogcatsu in front. Hooter wanted to wind down his window to tell the young driver to calm down as it wasn't about to change their situation. 'Bad idea', Hooter reasoned against his own notion, with his luck he might unintentionally turn that irate young driver into a vehicular super villain with his meddling interference. It had happened before.

The S.H.U.S.H. director accepted his most recent failing in this area was of teaching The Quiverwing Quack the finer points of driving etiquette. Hooter had gone undercover at more than one monster truck rally. Darkwing had a motorcycle so gutsy that he could enter a monster truck rally. Between them, Quiverwing was a good driver so long as she had at least six cylinders and so long as it didn't involve sitting still in a traffic snarl.

It was a marvel that Hooter could manage a four cylinder himself. It was a good job he had a lot on his mind beyond how much he wanted the bigger car of his youth back. He noticed in his rear vision mirror the car one up behind him had their turning indicators on to merge into the centre lane, no doubt they were trying to escape the hobbling truck in front of Hooter. Given the overcrowded state of affairs on the bridge, Hooter wished the signalling driver good luck with that endeavour. He certainly couldn't do such a zippy manoeuvre in his little car. While he had the guts, his box car most certainly did not.

A motorcyclist bumbled along from behind and snuck down the gap between the lanes. Hooter looked at the sluggish truck before him and flexed his fingers on the steering wheel, his foot aching for the floor. "Motorcycles 'are' economical." He muttered to himself. Hooter resolved to look into the matter. After all, 'economical' was the only reason he'd gotten this timid little black box car in the first place. 'No doubt Grizlykoff won't approve.' Hooter smiled to himself and imagined the roar of the truck engine before him to be the sound of his own motorcycle. Then he realised that was actually the sound of the truck moving and Hooter accelerated forward to catch up.

At last, Hooter edged his car off the bridge and the traffic began to shift in earnest. He turned left on the southern suburb sign and started reciting the map directions in his head, looking for street signs, landmark buildings and trees. There was the Op Shop of red and blue, now the South Side Auto Mechanics of yellow and white checkers. He turned left at the roundabout with the giant tree in the centre and drove up the hill and onwards through the next set of traffic lights. Hooter took a right turn at the second intersection with the green petrol pump station, drove past the last block of townhouses on the corner and finally onwards into the next suburb. From here, every building was a house with a yard and the trees became more apparent in the scene. The footpaths were edged with grass, the traffic lane he was in had narrowed.

The car before him put his indicator on and pulled up into a driveway.

Hooter's sense of adventure rekindled as he took in the tree lined suburban streets, musing how, amidst all this suburban Normality, dwelt the secret identities of the enigmatic Darkwing Duck and The Quiverwing Quack.


	3. Chasing the Rabbit Part 2

_A/n: Lol, it's been a while since I was this age. _

* * *

**Chasing the Rabbit Part 2**

* * *

**An Ace Assistant**

* * *

Ace only had a vague memory of meeting Catlyn once before and it had something to do with red hair. Ace wandered back along the corridor to Gosalyn's room. This time she knocked on the door. "Hello, is that Catlyn in here?"

A tiny girl pulled the door open and looked up at her. Her hair was short like Ace's and she had on a blue dress that reminded Ace of Raya. "Hello, Ace." Catlyn looked up at her, "wanna help me with an escs-periment?" With that, the little girl grabbed her hand and pulled her into the room.

Now that Ace looked properly around she saw that Gosalyn's room had changed a whole heap. The big bed was now under the window beside the desk and Catlyn's little bed was hiding behind the door. There was a square kids table at the wardrobe end of her bed and that's where Catlyn had all her experiment things set up. Ace sat down beside Catlyn at the little wooden worktable and looked at the little bottles and evidence packets on top.

"Are we doing chemistry or are we painting?"  
"No." Catlyn put what looked to Ace like a jar of pink paint next to an evidence packet with glittering stuff inside. "This is magic."  
"Magic?" Now Ace was really confused.  
"Here, it's better with pictures; I'll show you."

Catlyn got up, circled around Ace and knelt down beside her bed. She dragged out a book from under her bed and put it on top.

"But!" Ace complained, "I don't feel like reading a whole bunch today!"  
"That's okay. This is gonna be wheelie quack." Catlyn said in a friendly voice, "I just wanna show you the picture. Look."

Ace came and sat down beside Catlyn on her bed. She saw a boy looking up at a giant beanstalk on the bookcover. "It's 'Jack and the Giant Beanstalk'." Ace knew straight away, "daddy read that one to me, I remember, when I was little."  
"That's right," Catlyn enthused, "it's a 'magic beanstalk'!"  
Ace scratched her head. "You want to go visit a giant?"

"No." Catlyn answered, "but mummy always tells me to eat my beans coz they're good for my brain."  
"I don't get it."  
"It means beans are smart." Catlyn answered, tapping her head, "so instead of eating them and having to wait, I can just go a beanstalk all for myself and then it can help me figure stuff out."

"Golly, Catlyn." Ace shook her head. "Can't you just ask a grown up? That's what they're there for. That's what my daddy says."  
"But they're all in on the mutiny!" Catlyn frowned, "I need someone band new and really smart to ask and that's why I need a magic beanstalk to tell me all the answers I don't know so there."

"Well, okay, Catlyn, if you say so." Ace shrugged with a smile. She knew that it didn't really matter if it made no sense to her so long as Catlyn was believing so hard. "I'd like to help you."  
Catlyn smiled at her and Ace smiled back because now they were best friends. "Okay, so let's make a super bean."

Almost as quick as a wink, Catlyn jumped off the bed, trotted past Ace and sat down at her worktable. She patted the seat beside her for Ace to sit on and waited for her to come over.

* * *

Ace slid off the bed. She left her aeroplane on Catlyn's purple doona for safekeeping, and went and sat on the spare chair.

"Here's the bean." Catlyn took a scrunched up tissue from amongst the ingredients and opened it out. The greyish yellow bean was roundish and flattish.  
"It's funny looking." Ace remarked, "Aren't they usually green and long?"  
"Yes, usually," Catlyn answered, "but grandma said those aren't grown up enough before they're picked. So she gave me this one to plant." Catlyn smiled at Ace, "but before I plant it I want to put some magic on it to make it super smart."

Ace looked at all the ingredient jars and packets, "so how do you do magic?"  
"Well!" Catlyn took a big long breath, "mummy says it's all compacted with maths and chemist stuff." Catlyn answered, "But I've watched mummy and grandma heaps of times and it doesn't look that hard to me. Could you hand me the pink stuff, please?"  
Ace reached and undid the jar, giving it to Catlyn's waiting hands. "Maths? I thought you had to say funny words."

"Shh; time to consult it." Catlyn carefully tipped a little drop of the gooey pink stuff onto the bean. It smelt a lot like paint to Ace. "That's good." Catlyn decided and handed back the jar to Ace to put the lid back on. "Now we infinity want some clear stuff."

Ace opened up the jar that looked like it had water in it and handed it to Catlyn. This was fun. It reminded Ace of helping Aunty Sara.

Catlyn put a splash on the pink bean and handed it back to Ace. "I think we're doing really well here." Catlyn declared, "Now we just need a tiny little bit of fairy dust."  
"Fairy dust?" Ace opened up the packet of glitter and handed it to Catlyn, "isn't that the stuff Peter Pan used to fly?"  
"Let's not get carried away, Ace." Catlyn opened the packet and reached her fingers in. "Mummy says fairy magic is all to do with brain power and I want my beanstalk to grow smart so that's why it'll make the beanstalk smart." Catlyn watched how much dust she put on the bean and then she handed the opened packet to Ace.

Holding the packet, Ace stared at the motionless bean, waiting for something to happen. "Isn't it going to grow now?"  
"Oh, no," Catlyn answered, "We've got to go outside and plant it first." Catlyn scrunched the tissue back up around the bean and got up.

Ace got up too but she'd forgotten about closing the fairy dust packet and it spilt on the table and in her lap. She tried scooping it off the table and back into the bag with her hand. "Oops, sorry. I'm a little clumsy sometimes."  
"Oh, that's okay." Catlyn shrugged not upset at all, "we can get some more anytime from the fairy feeders."  
"It sure is glittery." Ace wiped her hands on her brown vest and all it did was make her top glitter too. "And sticky."

Realising Catlyn was leaving, Ace hurried to catch up to her. "How do I get it to come off, Catlyn?"

In the corridor, Catlyn turned to her and looked at the fairy dust all over Ace. "It's okay, Ace. There are many reasons in this world that lands us kids in soapy water but the fortune tree says fairy dust is not one of them."

They climbed down the stairs together.

* * *

Drake eyed Honker but more so his sceptical redheaded daughter as they sat in the lounge. Hooter was arriving shortly and these two had come in from next door to challenge Drake with something a lot harder than his unsolved case.

While Quiverwing had been busy over the winter holidays designing her cadet training program, Honker had also been busy, working enthusiastically on compiling information on Quantum Mechanics. Now the pair were ganging up on Drake to get some sort of miracle cure. They wanted to turn Honker's mass of data into a book to help Catlyn master her thermostatic control.

By far, Drake thought Quiverwing had the easier job getting her ideas down to Grizlykoff's mental reach than Honker did in getting his ideas down to Catlyn's mental reach and it wasn't just Honker. Catlyn was still very young. She still enjoyed the limerick that went 'There's a house with a wall, and a floor and a door'. Of course it was also true that anything involving building demolition was utterly hilarious to Catlyn. She'd much rather pester Tank to tell her about his 'day at work' than sit down with Morgana for a reading lesson.

"Well, 'if' you want my opinion I'd start with architecture and building structural integrity."  
"That's a bit dry, dad." Gosalyn argued.  
"I've read every word of his manuscript and it's all dry at the moment." Drake retorted, folding his arms. Then he realised he'd overdone it again. "Sorry, Honker. But it's dry."

"I'm not sure how to make it less dry, sir."

Drake looked at Honker as he heard the sound of the two girls coming downstairs, "I think what you really need to do, Honker, is figure out who you're talking to and then talk to them. Pretend you're having a conversation with them. Hello Ace, hello, Catlyn." He called out to the hallway opening. The two little ducklings popped around the corner into the doorway of the lounge room, "you know I can always tell when you're up to something, Catlyn." He added a little on edge about it.  
"Yes, grandpa." Catlyn answered brightly, "Ace and me are going to the backyard to plant the bean grandma gave me-see-you-later!" Catlyn hurriedly finished and pulled Ace away to the kitchen.

Drake watched his granddaughter disappear a little too quickly for his comfort. "Well, I can't think why that should worry me." His gaze drifted back round to Gosalyn as she sat on the far-side armchair. He vividly remembered the well-trodden line between fun and scheming.  
"What?" Gosalyn blinked a set of wide innocent green eyes at him. "Why are you giving me that look for, dad?"

"Oh, I wouldn't know where to begin in answering that one." Drake responded in a mildly humorous tone. "How about the time with the car wax, the vaporub, and my waddleman radio?"  
"Da-ad, that was an acc-i-dent!" Gosalyn blushed.


	4. Chasing the Rabbit Part 3

_A/n: If this were someone else's story I would simply accept the cracked __premise as a fact of the universe_. In my review I would remark upon the fun, light and dark qualities in the story and advise myself if there were any points that it overbalanced in those areas and that could benefit from redressal. I would tell myself that I'd done a great job with the logical coherence. I would not bother myself in continuing to point out the enormous crack in the premise for which I can do nothing. _As I dwell on the positives of others' inventions so too should I dwell on the positives of my own. ____Some days some cracks are harder to accept but that gives me no right to be unkind to myself._

* * *

**Chasing the Rabbit Part 3**

* * *

**Ace and the Beanstalk**

* * *

With half a dozen assorted dessert cookbooks spread out across the kitchen table Morgana was doing her very best to cook dinner, make ghoulade and choose her recipe for the school fete that was on the day after tomorrow. "Lemon and raspberry or ginger and apple?"

"Is she doing magic?" Morgana heard a little duckling's voice and guessed it was Launchpad's visiting daughter who was staying over.

"No, grandma's trying to make a deserted for school on Sunday. Nobody likes deserted, grandma," Catlyn called out to her as though she couldn't hear over the sound of the knife on the chopping board, "I don't think you should worry."

Morgana looked over at Catlyn and Ace in the doorway. "Hello, dears." Morgana smiled, "it's a 'dessert' for the other children at Raya's school ... oh, that Mrs. Finnuci woman." Morgana grumbled, "If she wants to turn this into a competition ..." Morgana paused, remembering Ace was a Normal child. Morgana suddenly realised here was her opportunity and she was quite excited about it, "you like dessert, don't you, Ace?"

"Yes, but not before dinner, mummy says."  
"Oh." Morgana was crestfallen, "no, I suppose not, she's right, of course."  
"Mummy says, 'you have your dinner first so you can remember your dessert the longest'."

"Ever practical, your mother is. Ah, but which dessert to choose?" Morgana flicked through one of the books, cakes and biscuits, puddings and tarts. "All these Normal desserts. Carrot and walnut or orange and poppy seed?"

"Come on, Ace, let's go outside. We've got work to do."

"Have a good time, dears." Morgana said over staring at the ingredient listing for 'New York Cheesecake' and pondering on the taste outcome, and how a Normal might or might not appreciate it more than a 'Strawberry Shortcake' given the sour cream content and choice of biscuit base difference.

* * *

Ace and Catlyn stepped through the back door and headed all the way to the back corner of the yard. The vegetable patch was beside the garden shed tucked away in the corner. "Can you see a space to put it?" Catlyn asked.

Ace wandered around, looking at all the interesting flowers and light green baby leaves coming out of winter hiding and not sure how big a space the beanstalk needed.

"Here's a spot." Catlyn called her over.

Ace knelt down and Catlyn handed her the tissue wrapped bean. After Catlyn dug out a couple handfuls of dirt, Ace put the bean into the hole. Then Catlyn covered it back up with a handful of dirt.

There was a rumbling shake beneath her and Ace fell backwards into the pumpkin patch. The bean sprouted up and out and went up higher and thicker.

"Stop! Stop, stop-stop!" A boy's voice called out and there was the sound of running footsteps.  
Ace looked up at the top of the beanstalk and it slowed to a stop just as he told it to. "Phew." Ace looked over at Catlyn, "that happened just like in the book!"

"Gosh, that bean sprout was excited." The boy said. Ace looked to the boy and saw his feathers were all green and his hair was all purple like someone had coloured him in wrong. She looked up at the beanstalk, seeing it was maybe not as tall as the house behind it. Maybe nearly though. The boy and the beanstalk looked a bit alike.

"That's not right." Catlyn sounded severely, "It's supposed to go smart; not into a giant."  
"Why do you want a smart beanstalk, Catlyn?" The boy asked in a kind voice.  
"So it can help me with ..." Catlyn took a breath, "my home murk."  
"But that won't work, Catlyn." The boy explained, "Because anything you plant is going to be younger than you. That means it's had less time to learn and you can't be smart without learning."

"Younger than me!" Catlyn squawked, "That's not a fair rule, Simon! I worked really hard to make a smart beanstalk!"

"Catlyn, my dad's tried making smart plants too. But it didn't work for him and it didn't work for you because being smart is putting together stuff like experience and observation. Like big old trees. They've seen everything and that's what makes them know stuff." Simon looked up at the top of the beanstalk then back to the girls. "Wow, it's big. What did you guys use on it?"

Catlyn didn't answer and was just staring wide-eyed at Simon with her beak open in shock. Ace wondered whether it was because he looked so much like the beanstalk next to him. Since, Ace thought, it wasn't a thing to be bothered about, she got back up on her feet and answered Simon herself.

"We used pink acrylic paint, water and fairy dust."  
"Fairy dust and water. That explains everything." Simon folded his arms.

He didn't sound mad or anything, just really sure of himself. Ace wondered if he sounded like that even when he made mistakes, or if he sometimes got really upset like Catlyn did.

"Baby plants want to grow up. Especially beans." He explained to Ace.  
"That makes sense!" Ace agreed, even though she didn't really understand. "I'll remember that one to tell my mummy and daddy," especially because they could explain it back to her. She smiled at him, "I'm Ace McQuack."

"I'm Simon Bushroot." He replied, "Are you sleeping over too?"  
Ace blinked at him. "Are you staying in Justin's room? Because everyone else's rooms are full."  
"Yeah." He shrugged, "do you sleep in a room when you're at home, Ace?"

"Yes." Ace scratched her head at his funny question. She looked back at the beanstalk and then realised that Catlyn had disappeared, "hey, where did Catlyn go?"  
"She's gone to her room." Simon frowned. "I'm always causing fights. I never mean to, but I really want people to learn or they keep doing bad things."  
Ace lectured, "Not everyone is ready to learn when you're ready to teach." She thought about what had just happened. "Catlyn's the one that's fighting, not you."

"Wait a minute, how can she have homework? She doesn't go to school." Simon said in confusion, "and why didn't she just ask me for help?"  
Ace shrugged, "because all the adults are hiding stuff from her and I guess maybe she thinks you're like an adult."

"I wonder what secrets she thinks they're hiding from her?" Simon went all thoughtful. "It does get a bit weird here sometimes. I know Gosalyn likes hiding stuff from me and I know Honker knows the stuff she's hiding and I know Honker has his own secrets that he's hiding from everyone but I didn't guess that maybe they're hiding things from Catlyn as well."

Ace frowned. "My parents hide stuff from me too. Mummy says adults hide stuff from kids because they don't think they're ready to learn it yet. But they also hide Christmas presents so I don't really know anymore. Why are your feathers all green? Is it a chemistry thing or is it just because your genes that make you that way like how come I got big feet like my dad and my mum's coloured hair?"

"Um ..." Simon looked at Ace with wide green eyes. "Well, it's sort of both. Being green helps me absorb sunlight better and I get that from my dad."  
"Absorb is a spongy thing, isn't it?" Ace thought about that, "So but that makes you a plant that talks."  
"Yes." Simon answered. "But plants aren't sponges."

"I'm not silly you know." Ace laughed at him. "I know what a sponge is. Daddy and me use them to wash the aeroplanes with." She smiled in memory, "I get to wash the wheels and make them shine all clean and pretty."

* * *

Raya with her bluebell dress and black hair with a silky blue headband came up to them. "Hello, Ace."

"Hello, Raya."

Raya smiled, "Ace, Simon and me are decoding medieval poetry." She showed Ace the hardcover book in her hands in excitement. "Would you like to help us? It's really fun because they use old words that don't make any sense anymore and we have to make up new ones to replace them with."

"That sounds really complicated!" Ace complained at the huge amount of hard thinking work in that idea. It was one of those hardcover books without a picture on the front. That meant it wouldn't have any pictures inside it at all.

Besides anyway, Ace remembered, she had something important to do. "No, Catlyn's unhappy. I'm going to go cheer her up."

* * *

Ace hurried up the stairs, noticing that another adult was in the lounge talking to Mister Mallard. It sounded maybe like Director Hooter but she didn't have time to stop to say hello right now. When Ace got upstairs, she saw Catlyn's door completely closed. She knocked on it.

"Catlyn, you want to talk about it?"  
"No." Catlyn answered flatly from the closed room.  
Ace twisted the doorknob and went inside. Catlyn was sitting in bed with her covers drawn up to her beak.

Ace sat on the end of her bed. "Simon said he didn't mean to upset you."

"Simon's fine." Catlyn's voice croaked. "He's always very nice to me."  
"Catlyn, what's the matter?"  
"You've got a daddy, Ace." Catlyn sniffed and wiped a tear away.

"He's not here." Ace petted her scarf sadly. "I miss him lots."

"But he was just here; he dropped you off. And then he'll come back for you later. And then you'll stop missing him. And then Simon will go home tomorrow to his daddy who 'always' worries about him." Catlyn said.

"But everyone has a daddy like that."

"Everyone but me!" Catlyn exclaimed. She continued in a hushed tear-filled voice; "I can't come from just a mummy. Even beans have mummy and daddy flowers. I don't have a daddy that loves me."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Catlyn, I didn't know that."

"I only just discovered it too." Catlyn shook her head fiercely, "I wanna cry a whole heap now, Ace." Catlyn handed her Ace's yellow aeroplane toy, "You'd better go play with Justin or Raya or you're only going to cry too."


	5. Down the Rabbit Hole Part 1

_A/n: Warner Bros. own Daffy Duck and Lola Bunny. Metalwing Duck is by __Phoenix__ Ride. Please don't eat me._

* * *

**Down the Rabbit Hole Part 1**

* * *

**First Impressions**

* * *

After parking his car at the curb, J Gander Hooter stepped up to the white picket fence to read the warning signs beside the front gate.

One read 'Beware the Gnomes' while the other read 'Warning: Unfriendly Fairies'. By their crisp white appearance, the signs were a recent addition. There was a small sign on the gate itself advising that it was a 'Guard Gate on Duty'. Of course, there were three small children living here and this could merely be a play on a flight of fancy. Hooter unhooked the latch and put his hand to the gate. He gave it a small push. The gate pushed back, snapping closed on him.

There was a crack of thunder overhead.

Then again, Hooter thought, Drake Mallard's wife was a witch accustomed to using magical creatures as guardians and protectors. Hooter stepped back onto the footpath and regarded the enchanted gate. He got the feeling that the faceless thing was glaring at him in some fashion.  
"Perhaps some civility between us could go a long way?" He said to what in all appearance was a white metal gate, "I'm Director J Gander Hooter." He stated his credentials. "Drake Mallard has invited me over for the evening."

The gate didn't answer back, and well, Hooter didn't suppose it would. He undid the latch again and this time the gate allowed him to push it open. He stepped past the hedge line and the rather tempestuous gate snapped shut behind him.  
"Well, I can see you are dedi-." He twisted about and ducked as a swarm of glowing fairies swooped at him. Hooter raced up the path for the cover of the front porch.

At the top step, Hooter took a breath then watched the broom from the corner sweep up to him. For a moment, he thought it might knock him down just as the fairies had hoped to do but instead it merely blocked him from getting to the door.  
"I can assure you that I am invited!" Hooter puzzled over the broom that danced in front of him whichever way he stepped.

The door opened and Drake was there. "Sorry, Director Hooter, the broom's a bristly sort." He apologised, then he addressed the broom, "it's alright, broomy, he's here to help me with a case, but good job."  
The broom spun about on the spot and then swept back over into the corner, gathering dust as it went.  
"You have a lot of guards on your home." Hooter remarked.  
"As I teach my kids; 'be so prepared as to rule luck out'." Drake answered, "You'd better come inside; the door isn't as well oiled as the gate but let's not push it."

* * *

Hooter stepped into a hall to see an ornate hallstand with fresh flowers in the plain pastel green porcelain vase on top as well as a set of upward bound stairs at the far end of the hall.

"Thanks for coming, Director Hooter." Drake said soberly, closing the door. "I've been a bit lost on this case without Launchpad around."  
"I am glad that you would think to seek me for assistance." At this moment Hooter's attention caught on a mound of inanimate shoes by the door. He then warily observed the umbrellas in the stand beside them. Everything seemed to be behaving now that Drake was present. Hooter didn't know how long they might stay put if he left. "You give me the impression that your complex case has reached a personal level."

"It's actually the other way around." Drake politely led him into a very normal-looking lounge room. "It's a personal case that's turned complex with the addition of mobsters. I say mobsters for want of a simpler description."  
"Yes, mobsters; you did say that." Hooter replied.  
"Would you like a cup of tea?" Drake interrupted his own topic of discussion in favour of manners.  
"That would be good, thank you."

Drake turned back for the hallway, "Hello, Ace, would you ..." Hooter heard the rush of tiny footsteps up the stairs. "Okay, I can see I've got my work cut out for me here." Drake muttered to himself and turned back to Hooter. "Launchpad's daughter is staying over for a bit until things get a bit more reasonable at home."  
"Oh, yes." Hooter nodded, "I am sorry about her grandfather."  
"Launchpad wants to tell Ace himself when he comes to pick her up." Drake said quietly. "Right now the poor kid probably has more clues than she knows what to do with."  
"I recall that she's always been quite a sensitive child." Hooter mentioned, "And she's come from a very tense emotional environment."

"Well, hopefully she can have some fun here." Drake paused. "I'll just see if I can't drag Morgana out of the kitchen for a minute. Make yourself comfortable."

* * *

Hooter looked around the room. They had an older style TV and a plain wooden coffee table. He skirted around the armchairs for a closer look at the bookshelves and paused. He moved back to the window and looked out on the front yard. Then he looked back at the wall with the shelves.

"I don't recall seeing the house straight on the fence line." Hooter remarked to himself. He turned back, looking at the books and movie boxes. It appeared as though someone had ransacked the top shelf and removed half the contents. The rest of that level largely consisted of cookbooks. The next shelf had a variety of practical household guidebooks including meditation, dress and toy making. The next shelf was end to end movies, below that books and a doll, below that a small stack of racing magazines and comics and a re-covered 1973 edition of the Junior Woodchucks Guidebook. The last shelf to the cupboard was below that and along it a series of six Russian Nesting Dolls stood in a line.

'Mother, father, sister, sister, brother, baby,' Hooter thought silently and looked back up the length of the cupboard. "Six household members." The Quiverwing Quack did her best to be of a regulation temperament but even on her best behaviour he could see the unknown gnawing away at the back of her mind. He looked back up at the shelf full of movie serials. 'Zombie Acres, Attack of the Clowns, Get Quacking, Lola Croft, Duckie, boxed sets of Astroduck, Cosmoduck, Duck?, Duck Dodgers, Metalwing Duck, Mongo from Mars ...' Scanning the rest of the less prominent titles he spotted: 'The Day of the Triffids, The Last Duck on Earth, Attack of the Vampire with Fangs and Tentacles ... my word; has Quiverwing no romantic inclination whatsoever?'

* * *

"Hello, Director Hooter, how are you?" Mrs. Morgana Mallard's voice called from the other side of the room. Hooter came back around the chairs to meet the towering woman with black hair by the coffee table in the room's centre. Morgana was dressed in a blue and black trimmed dress with a grey floral apron tied around her waist.

"Well," Hooter answered, "thank you very much, Mrs. Mallard." With a smile Hooter accepted the cup of herbal tea and the relaxing smell of lavender came up to him. "I was just noticing that you seem to have displaced some of your reading matter."  
"Oh, I'm trying to find a Normal dessert for Raya's school fete. This year I've been short on help with Gosalyn and Honker making themselves suspiciously scarce of late. Every time I think I hear their voices I come out only to discover them gone again. Oh dear, I'd better rescue Drake. Dinner seems to have gotten the better of him."

Hooter considered his whole enlivening experience to date at the Mallard residence and decided dinner would be of a similar nature.


	6. Down the Rabbit Hole Part 2

_A/n: Okay, so I'd love some better advice on how to recut this together other than "Talk Dirty - Vintage Klezmer Jason Derulo Cover (with 2 Chainz Rap in Yiddish)" on Scott Bradlee's Youtube channel._

_A/n: 'Meanwhile' is a thing here. Currently in Yiddish Rap version. Advice please!_

* * *

**Down the Rabbit Hole Part 2**

* * *

**Flutter Fly 1**

* * *

Ace sat down disappointedly in front of Justin and his miles of paper.

"Are you still doing all that stuff?"  
Justin nodded, "it's really important, Ace."  
So it was down to this or Raya's picture-less poetry. "Okay, Justin, can you find me a book?"

Justin stood up, brought a big pile of books from his table, and put them on the floor in front of Ace so she could look through them. Ace took the top book and flicked through the pages. It had a pretty cover with a space ship on it but it was one of those small books with not many pictures inside. The next book was flat, had about four words in the whole thing, and took Ace five seconds to flick through it because the pictures were boring too.

"I'm not any good at reading something without pictures." Ace told him, "but I can read manuals. Do you have any of those?"  
Justin frowned, "what's a manual?"  
"It's a book that tells you how to build and fix stuff. It tells you how aeroplanes and microscopes and freezers and things work." Ace explained. "It's a real world book."  
"I've got one like that here." Justin shuffled the pile and put a big brown hardcover book on top. "If you can't read it you can borrow my daddy's Junior Woodchuck guidebook that he gave me for Christmas but it's downstairs in the bookshelf so you'll have to go get that one."

"Oh!" Ace was puzzled, "my daddy's got one of those too. Was your daddy a Junior Woodchuck Den Leader?"  
"No, but he was a Junior Woodchuck. But I've already read that book and it doesn't have any bearing on this case." Distracted Justin went and sat back down again.

"Gosh." Said Ace as she looked at Justin bent in deep concentration over his papers, "you remind me of my aunty, Justin." She opened the old brown book and looked inside. It had pretty swirls in the margins and handy lists that were clearly instructions on how to do things with a fun picture at the bottom so Ace could see what they were talking about. 'Now this is a sensible book.' At the front of the book, there was a list of all the lists inside. 'How to grow plants. How to har-vest your plants. How to make a basic ward.' She read silently, wondering what a 'ward' was and what 'harvest' meant. 'How to levitate and control ... o-b-j-e-c-t-s.' She stopped there.

"Justin, what's this word?"  
He looked over, "levitate."  
"No, I know that word already. This one on the end."  
"Objects. Stuff, you know; things." He answered and looked back down at his scribble page.

Ace jumped up because the idea of learning how to make stuff float, levitate, and soar or otherwise fly in the air really excited her. "I want to go sit somewhere comfortable." Ace decided her bed in Raya's room was a good spot to start learning so she headed there.

* * *

**Inner Sanctum 1**

* * *

J Gander Hooter picked the sofa-side armchair and sat down with his cup of lavender tea. A moment later Drake returned to the lounge and sat quietly down on the sofa. Rather than press the subject on whether dinner was dead yet Hooter jumped straight to the case.

"You mentioned a problem with mobsters." He prompted.  
"To begin simply: I'm missing a motive and I'm missing a name."  
"A name? Their boss, of course."  
"Their boss," Drake nodded slowly, "Who is a vampire."

"Good heavens!" Hooter nearly spilt his drink, "No wonder Morgana gave me lavender tea!" He saved his drink and put his cup down beside the mouse statue on the little round table-stand. "You are proposing the existence of a criminal organization of vampires!"

"I wouldn't go so far as an organization."  
"By your election for the word 'mobsters', you in fact have already done so." Hooter rejected.  
"I'd call it more of a mess of malevolent marionettes." Drake sank back in his seat. "Q calls them revenants."  
"Then that is nothing like 'mobsters', Drake." Hooter remonstrated. "Your ability to oversimplify is extraordinary."  
"But it is simple." Drake frowned, "They're the teeth in his fine-tooth comb and he's searching St Canard for a knot. It all boils down to one master running the puppet show; one guy, one comb and one elusive knot."

Hooter distracted his unease by taking up his cup again.

* * *

**Flutter Fly 2**

* * *

Ace propped the big brown book up on her pillow and pulled open the cover to the index page.

"Page two four." She declared reading the number for the levitation spell and then turned more pages over until she found the page number that matched. "Levitate."

Ace frowned at all the long words on the page. She sat back and sighed, wondering if she should go back to Justin and ask more questions of him but he seemed really busy. The pictures on the page were of a wild bird and a butterfly and turned out not so useful after all. "No pictures to help."

The sound of fluttering made Ace look quickly around the room. "What's that?" She eyed the room suspiciously, listening hard for the sound of wings to start again. "Are you a moth?" She asked, sliding off the bed to investigate. Then she heard chirruping from her pillow.

Ace turned and stared at two little black creatures sitting on her pillow at the top of the book. "Hello?" She slowly climbed back onto her bed. "Are you somebody's pets?" It did seem likely, since they weren't very afraid of her.

They ruffled their wings, hopping around the book and chattering to her. Ace smiled. "You're really cute." She crawled a little closer but lost her nerve when it came to petting them. They were a bit excitable and had sharp claws and teeth. "You have very pretty wings." She said to them, "I'd love to fly too."

That thought made her look back to the page on levitation.

* * *

**Inner Sanctum 2**

* * *

"I suppose I should formally welcome you to 'Fort Mallard'." Drake said to break the moment of awkward silence. "To you it's a house. To a zombie or an uninvited vampire it's an empty space behind a blank impassable wall. It's also reinforced against explosives and hostile magic."

Again, Hooter glanced around at the unassuming lounge area with the blue armchairs, the ancient television set, grey curtains and quietly intricate wallpaper. "But," Hooter asked, "With such fanatical devotion surely he wouldn't switch targets to you?"  
"A wall-crawler like me?" Drake discounted with a laugh, "To him I don't even qualify as a mild inconvenience." He paused, "yet."

Hooter considered the weird and wonderful that made up the Mallard family. "This mobster case has something to do with Catlyn's paternal origins." He decided, looking at Drake. "It's the only thing that's changed these past few months to account for your additional security measures."  
"The elusive knot," Drake's expression was unusually bland, "Is her father."  
"You don't seem overly upset at him for implicating your family into their standing dispute."  
"You can't fight fire with fire. Rationally, his non-interference actually simplifies the situation." Drake shrugged.  
"There's rational, Drake, and then there's cold-hearted." Hooter reproved, "The child needs to know her father. Complicated or not, it's part of having a holistic social upbringing."

"But first," Drake argued, "There are a certain number of mobsters between us and him."

"Ah." Hooter sat back. "A personal matter turned complex."  
"Exactly. So I have to focus on the psychology of that puppeteer first." Drake frowned, "He's overspecialised. For 'overspecialised' see 'overcompensating'."  
"What sort of expertise is this particular vampire overspecialised in?"  
"The worst kind." Drake answered, "Cold-hearted rationality like you just accused me of. That's what it takes to make a single servant and he's ..." Drake shuddered.

Hooter felt Drake's discomfort. "But so he must have a decipherable reason for pursuing his 'knot'."  
"It's something tasteless and unimaginative from the deep freeze section." Drake disapproved with a grunt. "I'm sure it's something boringly obvious too."  
"His viewpoint is alien to your own." Hooter put his empty cup down on the little table beside him, "You play a very specific game, Drake. It's rather difficult to forget when you make such a terrible mess of those serial killers."  
Drake folded his arms. "Some knots are harder to untangle than others."  
"My point is that your game requires emotional interaction in order to work."

"Dark?" Morgana's voice called out. "I'm sorry to interrupt but are Eek and Squeak in there with you?"

Distracted, Drake turned away and called out. "No Morgana, try Raya's room!" He looked back at Hooter, "I'd better round up those bats for her. I'll be right back."

* * *

**Flutter Fly 3**

* * *

"How to make things levitate." Ace pronounced, reading the title and pointing her finger at the words as she worked to figure each one out. "F-irst, fo-cus your att-en-tion on the object." Ace frowned, looking at the next line, looking up at the bats. "How do you say that word?"

The bats chirruped at her unhelpfully.

"Mummy says I should sound long words out." Ace said. "But daddy says I don't need to understand every word so long as I can figure out the idea. So maybe the idea is in the next sentence." She looked back down at the next line. "P-oi-n-t-ing-pointing! Pointing at the object will help." Ace looked around and decided her yellow stuffed aeroplane was the object she should be pointing at, so she pointed at it and then she turned back to working out the next line in the book.

"Say these w-o-r-d-s-words ..." Ace gaped at the long words after that. "Wing ... That's not a real alphabet letter, that's just a squiggle!" She tried again, "Wing ..."

With a frustrated sigh, Ace gave up. She picked up her yellow aeroplane, lifting it high, looking up to it and making up the next words instead. "Flutter fly!" She commanded and tossed it over to Raya's bed, making one of the bears keel over and slip off the bed. Ace closed the complicated book and curled herself up. Everything in the Mallard house was either too much hard work or too boring.

"I want my daddy back! It's not fair! He's my daddy, not everyone else's!"


	7. A Tweedle Duet

**Tweedle Duet**

* * *

The lounge room began sparkling around Director Hooter and he stood up from the blue armchair. "What is going on?"

With a sweep of sparkles and colour, the lounge room vanished from Hooter's view and his feet sank into soft grass. The new place had benches and flowerbeds surrounding bushes. It looked much like St Canard's Central Park although Hooter knew it couldn't be; and while it looked quite like there weren't any walls, surely there still had to be?

In either case, walls or not, this matter would need some resolution. For that, Hooter needed to find Drake Mallard. He headed in the direction he thought Drake had gone.

* * *

"Hey, you; keep off the grass!" A short irritable looking creature with a red freedom cap, bristling brown beard and dirty overalls glared up at him.

"Excuse me." Hooter responded and with a quick look around, he discovered a pathway nearby. He sidestepped over off the grass and noticed that the yellow white gravel path was not heading in Drake's direction. Hooter looked back to the grumbling creature. It was quite possibly a gnome if Hooter remembered the sign on the front fence correctly. "Might I ask-?"

"Do you have any idea how much hard work we put into this place?" The gnome's gruff voice started up at Hooter crossly; "Especially after winter has only just come through here! Do you know what it takes to get the grass looking this nice again?" The gnome continued to rant, "And then here you come stomp stomping, all the way through! Never mind all the fragile young grass blades! I tell you-."

"I apologise for my ignorance." Hooter steeled himself against the tirade, "Now that I know, I will certainly do my best to stay on the pathway. Can you tell me where I might find the Mallard family?"

Cut off, the gnome grunted and pointed over at a sign down the pathway far away into the distance.

"Thank you, kindly." Hooter told him and headed down the gravel path to the crossroads, passing by a park bench.

* * *

As Hooter got closer to the intersection, the lettering on the giant green road sign came clearer. There was one up arrow, one right arrow and two left arrows, one in the shape of a left turn.

"Up, CloudCity  
Right, Infinity  
Left, Land of Derring-Do  
Left, Garden of the Realms"

Aware of his isolation; Hooter started talking aloud to himself. "If I'm going to find Drake Mallard I'd best go left." He resolved firmly and took the left-hand path.

* * *

As Hooter headed along the neat gravel path, he noticed giant upright baseball bats mixing in with the trees. The occasional bench seat gave way to pairs of giant sneakers. The wide gravel path narrowed to a dirt track with a painted white line running down the middle of it.

After a while of walking along the gently twisting dirt track, Hooter saw an impassive boulder at the top of a crest ahead. Getting closer, Hooter soon realised that it was in fact a giant baseball.

"My word," Hooter gazed at the enormous stitches in the roadblock before him. "This is the biggest punctuation mark I've ever seen." He looked around and saw the white painted path heading right along the edge of the crest. Beyond the baseball boulder, Hooter saw the dense baseball bat forest rolling off into the far distance. He could only hope that the path would eventually lead to Drake Mallard.

But first he had to get through the dust cloud in the hollow.

* * *

Hooter steadily made his way down the easy sloping goat trail, looking left. The settling dust revealed a building standing in the clearing. A house, Hooter noted; one of those cubic designs with lots of large windows and white paint. Two young people were standing before it and were consulting architectural drawing plans. They didn't notice Hooter approaching them.

"It isn't very friendly." The redhead said.

Even without her usual purple armour on, Hooter recognised The Quiverwing Quack from her voice. For a moment, he puzzled on how to address her and catch her attention.

The teenage boy sighed, "I still don't see how you mean when you say it isn't very friendly." He twisted the plans upside down.  
"Well, do you think that's friendly?" She leaned across his plans and pointed at the sharp corners of the overhanging lounge room.  
"You're saying I shouldn't have it in there, Q?"  
"No, Honker ..." Q paused, "Here, let me show you what I'd do with it. Hand me that, will you?" She gestured vaguely to a stack of building materials that Hooter hadn't noticed before.

The teenage boy went and handed Q a handful of nails and an armful of planks. In a flurrying cloud, Q zoomed around the space beside the cubist house. When the dust settled down, Hooter saw there were now two houses in the clearing: a cubist house and a surrealist cottage of the slightly melted variety.

"I'm starting to see your point," Honker stated from over the large piece of paper in his hands, "But I think you're going a bit overboard." Honker pointed at the warped window flower boxes.

* * *

"Excuse me." Hooter interrupted what was apparently a very large and lengthy conversation, "Hello, Q?"  
"Oh, hi Director Hooter." Q smiled at him, "Honker, this is Director Hooter. Dad has him over to help tonight. I hope you can, sir; Dad gets more lost without Launchpad than anybody can really tell."

"Ah, yes." Hooter centred himself, "which rather summons the second question I have of where he has gotten to, however, my first question is where we ourselves might have gotten lost to."  
"We're in the dining room." Q answered, "Geographically speaking we're in the closet space under the stairs."

Hooter looked around them at the two sizeable family homes and the forest of baseball bats beyond the clearing and around and up to the giant baseball boulder at the top of the crest overhead.

"It seems that not everything is as it would appear." He mused, unsure if it was his perception that was bewitched or theirs. "Perhaps you could help me find your father, Q. He went upstairs to find your mother's bats ... of the flying variety; I believe it was to Raya's room."  
"Sure." With a smile, Q grabbed Honker's arm as he finished stuffing his plans into his backpack. "This way, sir."

Together the three of them headed out of the clearing and onto the white painted path continuing on through the forest of baseball bats.


	8. Cloud City

_A/n: Stop me if you haven't heard this one._

* * *

**Cloud ****City**

* * *

The bed Ace was sitting on went all lumpy and turned green. It let out a shriek and flapped a set of green leathery wings. As the pterodactyl rose up to take flight, it dropped Ace backwards and flew off.

Instead of hitting the carpet, Ace fell straight through a fluffy white cloud and landed with a bump on top of a little yellow aeroplane not much bigger than Ace was.

"Oops," The little aeroplane's nose and wing propellers buzzed in a mild spin. "I interrupted you from going down. I'm sorry." He started doing a back flip.  
Ace cried out and grabbed tight around him, "No, no, I don't want to go down!"

The little yellow aeroplane stopped tipping up and started flying straight again. Ace relaxed her grip in relief.

"But why were you going down if you didn't want to?"  
"It was an accident." Ace explained. "Thank you for catching me."  
"Oh, well that's alright then," the little aeroplane flew in an arc up through a gap in the cloud. "My name's Plane, what's yours?"  
"My name's Ace McQuack." Ace answered.

"Where are we?" Ace gazed around at the vast white fluffy world around them. In the distance, she could see a big white palace with turrets and a courtyard with trees. "Are we on top of a beanstalk?"  
"Oh. I should have realised that you were a visitor since I'd never seen you before." Plane chuckled, "Welcome to Cloud City, Ace. Let me show you around."

* * *

Plane flew over the clouds for a little while and came to land near a giant microscope that had big feathery white wings on its back. Ace climbed down off Plane and came closer to the new mechanical person for a better look. This was the spryest microscope Ace had ever seen. It was using the tray sticking out of its stomach like a table and its metal arms were acting as precise hands in the job of wrapping up a box with white gift wrapping paper. The microscope placed a giant yellow bow on top.

"Here you are, Plane," the microscope handed it down, its cheery light blinking girlishly; "this is for you."  
"Uh ..." Plane hesitated, "Thanks, Microscope." He took the box on his back and with a deft flip; he tossed it away behind him. The gift box landed on the cloud nearby and exploded. A big piece of cloud flew at Ace and water droplets splashed all over her.

"Aha." Ace wiped the water off the surface of her dad's scarf. "So that's how rain happens."

"Never mind, Plane," Microscope said, "I'll make a new one fo-oh dear."

Ace turned around to see what Microscope was looking at.

* * *

A set of test tubes flew across the sky and landed in a line in front of Ace, Plane and Microscope. Most of them had green or blue coloured liquids inside them but the one standing in front had red liquid inside him.

"Microscope, the Refrigerator requires your immediate attendance at an emergency rebuild." The head test tube said in a bossy red.  
"Oh, dear." Microscope's light grew faint.  
"The Refrigerator?" Ace repeated. By the way Microscope's light had dimmed; it couldn't be a nice thing for her. Ace looked at the officially red test tube. "Why does she have to go?"

"I'm sorry, sir, Ace is new to Cloud City." Plane wheeled quickly in front of Ace.  
"Then you had best teach her how to behave here, Plane, and on the double." The test tube ordered in a tomato red.  
"Yes, sir."

Microscope and the set of test tubes flapped their white feathery wings and flew off to the palace in a swarm.

* * *

Plane turned to Ace to explain. "The Refrigerator is the boss of everyone. He tells us what he wants done and we go away and do it."  
Ace frowned. "But that's not fair. Doesn't it spoil all your games, going to help him and take all your time away?"  
"Well, yeah, but at least it makes him happy."  
Ace crossed her arms. "Somehow I don't believe it makes you happy."  
"Oh, Ace." Plane said, his yellow wings drooping in sadness, "it is hard, you know, but he is the boss, and that's our job. An aeroplane's gotta do what an aeroplane's gotta do."

"It's not fair." Ace sighed. "I'm on a magic cloud where everyone has wings and can fly and people are still getting bossed around." She looked hopefully at Plane, "Refrigerator didn't order you to go help him, so that means you can still stay here with me ..." she hesitated, "We could maybe play together?"  
"Aw, gee!" Plane spun his propellers happily, "I'd love that, Ace!" He paused, "Play what?"  
"Well," Ace shrugged, "You could show me more of Cloud City."  
"Hop on then!" He laughed. "Boy, are you in for a ride!"

Ace climbed on top of him and held on tight.

* * *

They flew over the giant white cloud and circled around the uprises, teasing the clouds into ribbons and cone shapes.  
"I love flying." Ace told Plane with a laugh.  
"You should get your own set of wings." Plane told her, "Then you can fly all the time."

A darker patch of cloud in the distance drew Ace's attention and she pointed, "Is it raining over there?"  
"No, we're above the cloud, Ace. It never rains here." Plane swooped around and off they were heading for the dark patch.  
"You're right; it doesn't rain above the clouds." Ace paused, "Unless there are more of Microscope's exploding boxes around."

They laughed together as they headed towards the dark part of the clouds.

* * *

The closer they got the more Ace could hear the roar of an even bigger engine than Plane's joyful propellers. Plane scooted to a landing and Ace went closer to see what it was that was making so much noise and turning the clouds black.

Around a tuft of grey cloud Ace saw a silver two wheeled beast zooming around and around in a circle. A flock of books were flapping around its handlebars and together they were whipping the clouds up into a dark ominous frenzy.

"It's a motorcycle!" Ace exclaimed to her yellow friend beside her.  
"You'll have to shout, Ace; it looks like Motorcycle is in one of his thinks."

Ace turned around and cupped her beak to make her voice louder. "Hello!" She called out and waved, trying to be careful not to jump up and down too much in case she fell through the cloud again.

Hearing her, the motorcycle swerved around to a stop. The startled books went fluttering up into the air and went to circle the cone of clouds in the centre of the dark ring instead. The motorcycle zoomed straight through the centre of the cone cloud and broke it up. Confused, the flock of books settled down into a pile in the now-flat centre of the ring. The new person wheeled to a stop by Ace's side.

"Hello." Motorcycle pronounced with a dark curious thrum of his engine. "What are you?" He blinked his headlights at her, "Hmm, not a plane, not a ... goodness, what are those?"  
"Those what?" Ace looked down at her brown vest and cream scarf.  
"You're standing on the funniest sort of wheels I ever saw."

Ace looked down at her webbed feet. "My feet aren't wheels." She explained, looking back up at him. "You've got wheels. I've got feet."  
"A different mode of transport ... how in-triguing." Motorcycle purred thoughtfully.  
"Motorcycle, this is Ace." Plane introduced her.  
"Hello, Ace." Motorcycle's engine purred handsomely, "So, following on with my line of inquiry; what do you do with feet that you can't do with wheels?"  
"Um, that's a good question." Ace mused, "I guess ... I trip up and I fall down." She answered. "You can't do that with wheels."

Motorcycle twisted his angle bars, his headlights looking all about the area. "I can't see much on a cloud for you to trip on."  
"It can still happen." Ace informed him. "I fell off a dinosaur when I first got here," she declared, "and that's kind of like tripping because I was up and then I was down and I needed help to get back up."  
"Aha!" Motorcycle's headlights brightened, "I understand it all now!"

His engine revved humorously, "Stick with me, Ace; I'll teach you how to roll."

"Until Refrigerator wants you and calls you away." Ace remembered unhappily.  
"That overgrown icebox? Ha!" Motorcycle revved in loud ridicule, "Nobody orders Motorcycle around!"  
Hearing that made Ace excited. She jumped up and down and accidentally made a small hole in the cloud beneath her. Saving herself from another fall, Ace quickly sat down to stop from falling through.

She looked up at Motorcycle. "You don't like him too?"  
"I'm working on a plan to defeat him as we speak." Motorcycle stated in a grand purr.

"You're always working on a plan, Motorcycle." Plane reminded him with a friendly spin of his wing propellers.  
"Ah, but," Motorcycle countered, "With Ace's help we should come to an answer now." Motorcycle turned his handlebars back to Ace, "How are you with technical manuals, Ace?"  
"I love technical manuals!" She laughed.

Motorcycle twisted his handlebars the other way and spun around in an excited circle. "Come on, guys, time to meet Ace!" Motorcycle called over and the pile of books flew over and flapped around them in a rustling circle of excitement. "She's going to help us make our Impossible Monster Truck!"


	9. Garden of the Realms

_A/n: A __plot point _puzzle with plants.

* * *

**Garden of the Realms**

* * *

The path wended through the baseball bat forest till Hooter, Q and Honker turned a corner and abruptly found a wall. Hooter looked down at the path beneath his feet and it just stopped there at the wall. To the left and right was the forbidden gnome grass.

Hooter looked over at Q and Honker. "I suppose you don't see an unsurpassable wall at this present time?"  
"Unsurpassable? I don't even know the meaning of the word. Honker?"  
"Uh, no." Honker answered, "Unless you count Tank."

In a blur the two of them attacked the blank stone wall and with a settling dust cloud they'd cut out a tall, black wrought iron garden gate.

Hooter read the metal writing in the arch, "Garden of the Realms." He mused on the fact that there hadn't been another turnoff for the Land of Derring-Do. "I suppose one must go through one place in order to get to the next place." With a push Hooter opened the gate and the teenagers followed him through.

"I don't think that's right, Honk."  
"What? How can that not be right, Q?" Honker answered Q with a disbelieving edge to his voice.  
"It should have two ells in it, not one."

* * *

As per the ironwork inscription it indeed was a garden where they now stood. The path between the patches of rich green grass consisted of a series of large white stones. Hooter looked forwards up the path and saw a large monumental fountain standing in the middle of the view.

"That fountain must be at the centre of all this." He decided and started on towards it. There were flowers in full bloom everywhere around and here and there on the grass were picnic spreads with teddy bears sipping tea.

"Fountain?" Honker repeated, "That has two ohs in it."  
"Two a's, Honk."  
"Two dee's."  
"Two ells."

Leaving them to their never-ending nonsensical debate, Hooter stepped up to the fountain alone, looking around as the path split off at right angles like a plus sign and finished up at the walls not too far away.

* * *

Hooter turned away from the fountain and back up the path he'd come down. Beyond Honker and Q the gate had returned to being a wall.

"It's fortunate you two can open such walls." Hooter remarked.  
"Oh, no, you can't leave here!" He heard a little girl's voice and turned to see a medium sized duckling with black hair dressed in a blue Victorian dress aged seven to nine. "I won't let you." She crossed her arms, sweeping up to him. "So there."  
"So there," repeated several daffodils standing in a row behind the nearby stone bench. They folded their leaves and turned their petalled heads away.

Hooter wondered over such an extreme statement and whether in this bewitched environment the child might have exactly the sort of power needed to enforce her rules.

"Oh, Raya!" A boy's voice cried out from behind Raya and Hooter watched a green child with purple petals come hurrying up the path. Hooter recalled that Reginald Bushroot did have some children although Hooter was surprised how much this one resembled his father.

"You can't say that!" The boy objected, "Why do you say that? He's got to be able to leave." He pleaded.  
"No, because he's not ready." Raya shook her head.  
"He's not ready," chorused the lily flowers in the fountain.  
The boy glanced at the lilies but otherwise ignored them. "Why not, Raya?"  
"It's too dangerous out there, that's why. I don't want anyone getting hurt." She turned away from them and joined one of the teddy bear picnics.  
The boy sighed tragically and looked up at Hooter. "I'm sorry, sir."

"You must be Simon." Hooter decided to formally introduce himself, "I'm Director Hooter."  
Simon frowned up at Hooter. "Do you know what's going on, sir? One minute we were outside looking at poetry books and the next we're here trapped ..." He looked at the water fountain. "Raya doesn't even have a water fountain in her backyard."  
"How peculiar," Hooter looked at the fountain again, "it was my understanding that we were in Raya's bedroom."  
"The teddy bears belong to her room ..." Simon gazed around, "I think I've figured it out now." He looked up at Hooter, "We're not trapped in Raya's bedroom or her backyard." He took a breath, "we're stuck in Raya's head."

Hooter looked around the courtyard with renewed interest. Q and Honker were sitting on a stone bench, still contemplating the architectural plans in Honker's hands and occasionally Q would say things like 'what if you move this there' and Honker was regularly turning it upside down.

"It's rather peaceful a place to get caught in." Hooter mused, looking at the friendly teddy bears and the bright flowers, the sweet smelling air and then again to the white washed walls, the white stepping stones leading to all four of them and the white washed fountain.

"Obviously Raya has an orderly mind."  
"Well, yes, the problem is the word 'caught'." Simon replied.  
"Indeed." Hooter mused, "But we got in here easily enough with Q and Honker's help. If I interpret their machinations correctly, their belief that there was no obstacle is what created the gate."  
"That sounds like fairy magic." Simon suggested, "Maybe it'll work for us too and we can bring the walls down if we believe it enough." Simon headed off down one of the paths.

* * *

Hooter followed after Simon, glad for some company that saw this strange place as he did.

"Can you see that?" Simon pointed at an inscription in the white of the wall.  
"Earth as a verb," Hooter read aloud.  
"Oh, that's a relief. It means we are seeing the same things." Simon declared, "We'd better read the other walls. They might give us some clue for which verb we need."

Hooter and Simon took a turn at the centre and Hooter glanced over at the others. Honker had a pair of scissors and was cutting shapes out of the plans.

"Hello there."  
Hooter looked down at the teddy bear peering curiously up at him, "hello?"  
The teddy bear rubbed his stomach with a hopeful expression. "You wouldn't happen to perhaps have a tiny morsel of honey on you, by any chance? Hmm?"  
"Unfortunately not," Hooter answered.  
"Oh, bother." The teddy bear decided, "I see I shall have to talk to the bees." It trotted off and Hooter moved on to the wall.

"Air as a verb," Simon stated. "Air shares a corner with Earth. That might be important."  
"Despite Raya's challenge her teddy bears seem quite tame." Hooter remarked to Simon as they headed back to the centre.  
"Her plants aren't." Simon warned him. "We've got to go this way now."

* * *

They turned at the fountain and Hooter noticed Honker and Q working with glue and sticky tape.

"Watch out." Simon warned him.  
"What for?" Hooter looked around the path. "I don't see it."  
"The red tulips; If we tread very lightly maybe they won't wake up."  
Hooter paused, "Surely you can console them if they wake?"  
Simon frowned, "That's more of a Harry thing."

They tiptoed past the flowerbed and on to the wall. "Fire as a verb," Simon read out quietly. "I should have guessed."  
"Guessed how?" Hooter asked firmly.  
"The flowers in this area are all red."  
Hooter looked around them. "Red like fire? That rosebush seems to be watching us."

"Oh, no, run!" Simon exclaimed and Hooter dodged a thorny vine that swung across the path. They hurried through the snatching foliage and Hooter stumbled on the uneven flagstones. He regained his footing just as the tulips started nipping at his jacket.

"No, no; let him go!" Simon shooed the flowers away and they got breathlessly to the fountain once more.  
"Good heavens." Hooter breathed. "Simon, you really must work on giving information about things like that in a timelier manner."  
"Okay." Simon breathed. "So snapping plants aren't too scary for you to think about, sir?"

Hooter paused, regarding Simon as the first 'snapping plant' that Hooter was thinking about.

"Given enough time perhaps we could fathom the reason behind why they snap and persuade them not to snap at all."

* * *

Hooter and Simon headed in the final direction, this one he'd originally come down and so knew it was safe even though the wall no longer had a gate.

"Heart as a verb," Hooter stated with a frown. "This is unexpected."

They went back up to the centre. By now Honker's plans were back into the shape of a rectangle.

"Earth, air, fire and heart," Hooter repeated. "That last one is rather odd."  
"How, sir?" Simon asked.  
"I had expected, that following after 'earth, fire and air', would come 'water'." Even as he said it Hooter looked again at the water fountain. "This is possibly where the name 'Garden of the Realms' came from."

"Five verb puzzles." Simon concluded, "Making up five walls or five realms of nature."  
"And each of them doing words," Hooter added. "Perhaps it's some way of manipulating each force?"  
"No, I don't think so." Simon disagreed, "because that would involve using one force against another. You can use air to blow down an earth wall; you can make an earthquake and bring down a water wall. In the end they're standing all together and they're holding each other up." He frowned. "That wasn't very useful of me."

"I'm thrilled for this challenge." Hooter patted Simon's head in good humour and went and sat down on an empty stone bench. "Let's try again together." He looked over to Q and Honker thinking again of how easy they had built that gate. Right now Honker was practicing Origami. "It is remarkable how entertained they are with their building project that they don't even see this place."  
"It is weird." Simon sat down beside him. "Raya's the opposite. It's like I'm just a figment of her imagination and this place is real. Like one of her teddy bears instead of a whole other person."

Hooter mused, "If we grant that we have gotten ourselves tangled up in Raya's mental landscape, we must say that the walls are also figments of her imagination. What puzzles me the most is the purpose of the fountain in her imagination."  
"Why?"  
"I gather the walls are here to protect her from the outside. But the fountain stands in the middle so how does it function as a protective fifth element? And then, if my last statement about the walls is right, how did Honker and Q manage to create a door in?"  
"They must share some interactive context." Simon stood up and had a look at the plans in Honker's hands and came back. "The fountain acts like a roof for Raya's house. We're visitors in her house and they're builders."

"Oh, dear," Hooter sighed, "that line of enquiry didn't prove as useful as I'd hoped."

* * *

"There are five forces of nature in the puzzle." Hooter began again. "Each of them needing a doing word."  
"But ..." Simon pondered, "there's no such thing as air or water or earth inside a brain. It's all just thoughts and feelings."  
"Now there's a possibility." Hooter smiled at Simon, "each element could be a mental representation and 'that' might be the doing word we're looking for."  
"That's making much more sense now." Simon declared. "Raya's very big on mental discipline."

"So then five mental disciplines," Hooter concluded, "such as logical, lateral, linear and emotional?"  
"I don't know how earth fits into all that, director." Simon stated, "I'd say if anything Earth would be all about creating because-."

There was a rumble and the earth wall momentarily winked into nothing and Hooter saw a field beyond the wall before the white washed barrier reappeared.

Simon jumped up excitedly, "that's it; I know the answers!" He laughed, "you get all fiery because you're protecting something, you cry because you care ... are caring." He jumped on the spot, "so then heart must mean considering other people's feelings and needs, well of course, it did let you in! And so that only leaves air which is being clever, um ... thinking."

Hooter repeated after Simon.

"Fire is protecting  
Water is caring  
Heart is considering  
Earth is creating  
Air is thinking."

The walls of Raya's garden vanished and a rolling forested view that reminded Hooter of Audubon National park came apparent.

* * *

"Simon! Oh, Simon," The little ebony-haired girl raced up and hugged the boy, "are you really going to leave?"  
"If all your family is like this we really need to help them somehow." Simon answered, taking her hands, "come with us, Raya."  
Raya shook her head fearfully. "Be careful. It's really dangerous out there."  
Simon stated, "I will always come back to you, Raya."

Hooter turned and addressed Q and Honker, "would you two like to join us?" He asked, "Your guidance would be a continued benefit."  
"Sure." Honker smiled and he stood up from the bench.  
"So what's the plan?" Q asked eagerly as she also stood up.  
"I really think we should try and find your father as a matter of priority. Raya, do you know where he is?"

"You certainly took a wrong turn back there." Raya frowned, "You have to go back to the crossroads and turn left from this direction."  
Hooter recalled the sign. "I gathered by the sign that direction was some place called 'Cloud City'."  
Raya shook her head. "It can't be. Cloud City is up."

Hooter looked to the sky above them and saw a great cloud hovering in the rainbow streaked sky.

"My word that is fanciful!" He exclaimed quietly, "surely the work of a youthful imagination."  
"We'd probably better get back to those crossroads." Simon stated.  
"Wait, Simon." Hooter looked over at Q and Honker. "Do you two know another way around to the Land of Derring-Do?"

"The where?" Honker puzzled.  
"I think he's looking for dad." Q interpreted, "sure, you can bet he's around here somewhere. We'll help you find him."

Hooter smiled at Simon's puzzled face and fell in step behind Q and Honker. They stepped past the point where the fire wall used to be and the teenagers started working in their usual flurry.

"Whoa." Simon stepped to Hooter's side. "They're like bees!"

A few moments later Hooter and Simon were looking at a copy of Audubon Bay Bridge.

Hooter smiled back at Raya looking pensive on the edge of her garden. "If we're to get to the bottom of this our return is inevitable, Raya." He assured her and stepped up onto the bridge construction.  
Simon turned back to Raya, "I'll be back soon, Raya." He promised.


End file.
